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Unskilled Windscreen Fitters

Many windscreen fitters say they’re experienced, but what kind of experience that really is will show in the end product or in the way they do their job. A windscreen fitter can be judged on how he or she fits a windscreen.

Bonded windscreens: applying the adhesive.

How Wide?

Compressed, the Polyurethane adhesive (PUR) bead wall usually (should) end up about 10-15mm wide. This can be achieved using a trim and (or) appropriate spacers/paking blocks/bump stops dependent on the application. A ‘V’ shaped cut in the nozzle (of the extruder) will stand the bead up to about 12mm but this is variable depending on the regulation of extrustion, angle of extruder (it should be perpendicular, to the substrate BTW) and generally the combination of the aforementioned togethered with the speed in which you get the whole thing around the glass or frame to which it will be bonded.

BMW E36 Compact

Whoever fitted this BMW E36 Compact windscreen did not get any of that memo, obviously. There’s just no excuse for it.

Why should anyone be concerned about this? There are some technical details which I’ll spare (unless anyone really wants to know) but at some point in the car’s timeline the windscreeb will need replacing, and to do that someone has to come along and cut this windscreen out. And when, in your mind, you think the job will only take you *so* long, and it ends up taking twice as long because Mr Numpy Balloonhead stood the bead up as high as a prison wall, then squashed it down by pushing the windscreen FLAT against the pinchweld leaving barely a millimeter of PUR sandwiched between the two surfaces, your opinion of some [alleged] windscreen fitters is reinforced.

A few sweary words were shouted during the removal of this windscreen.

All this fitter had to do was give a flying proverbial. it would have been easier to whack a couple of rubber blocks against the bead to allow the windscreen to bed evenly.